The clearest picture of where development stands in Morris County comes from the county's own ledger. On March 26, 2026, the Office of Planning and Preservation released its 2025 Development Activity Report, and the figures describe a year of unusually concentrated growth, driven by a handful of very large projects rather than a broad spread of small ones.
Planning director Joseph Barilla presented the report to the Board of County Commissioners. Read alongside individual municipal filings, it shows both what is being built and where the strain is starting to show.
By the numbers, the county reported 2,028 multifamily and mixed-use units proposed in 2025, compared with 923 in 2024. It reviewed 26 multifamily or mixed-use applications, roughly 1.8 million square feet of proposed non-residential development, and 235 building-related applications county-wide.
The county noted that four projects alone accounted for more than 60 percent of the proposed units, and roughly 14 percent were designated for age-restricted or assisted-living housing. Parsippany-Troy Hills again led all municipalities with 26 submissions, followed by Randolph Township with 18 and Hanover Township with 17. New single-family subdivision activity continued its long decline, with just 23 new lots proposed.
Two themes frame the project list. Affordability remains a pressure point, with the county reporting a 2024 median sales price of $773,858 for new attached homes and $1,012,840 for detached homes, and median two-bedroom rent at $2,216 a month. The dominant structural trend is the conversion of aging office campuses and commercial sites into mixed-use residential, retail, and industrial space.
Among the marquee redevelopments, The District at 15Fifteen remains the county's headline example of the office-to-residential shift along the Route 10 corridor. A former office campus has been redeveloped into a mixed-use district, with residential apartments completed and retail shops and a hotel component still under construction according to the roundup materials.
Highline Marketplace in Morris Plains is another office-corridor redevelopment to watch. Phase 1 construction is underway at 6 Sylvan Way, and prior-cycle records have connected the broader site to a large residential and amenity component, including roughly 280 luxury apartments and a fitness club.
Morris Marketplace, built on the former Colgate-Palmolive corporate campus near Morris Township and Morristown, has opened to retail tenants with more than 140,000 square feet of lifestyle-retail space. It sits within a larger parcel envisioned to add townhomes and rental units near Mennen Sports Arena.
Large residential applications remain central to the pipeline. In Dover, planning board exhibits for 71 Bassett Highway describe demolition of an existing commercial building and construction of three mixed-use buildings with 640 residential units and 11,733 square feet of commercial space, paired with roadway, parking, drainage, utility, stormwater, and affordable-housing components.
In Morris Township, an amended Mount Kemble Avenue Redevelopment Plan adopted in March 2026 covers 9.2 acres and allows 139 multifamily or townhouse-style units, including 23 affordable units. Township materials also list additional affordable-housing sites at 300 Madison Avenue, 100 Southgate Parkway, and 291 James Street.
In Florham Park, Lennar has announced High Pointe at Florham Park as part of a broader Northeast expansion, offering luxury townhomes with delivery slated for fall 2026. In Lincoln Park, a 104-unit housing project was selected for New Jersey's permitting-dashboard pilot, a state program intended to make project permitting status more transparent to the public.
Earlier-cycle projects also remain relevant context, though their current status should be verified against municipal agendas before relying on them. Those include Parq Parsippany, KRE East Hanover, Morristown Plaza, and Morristown Station.
On the industrial side, the Riverdale Quarry redevelopment is the largest non-residential item in the 2025 numbers, with nearly 1.2 million square feet of proposed warehouse space. The project is a major reason county-wide non-residential submissions rose to about 1.8 million square feet. The site is the long-running Tilcon/Riverdale granite quarry, and local planning materials have long contemplated quarry reclamation as active use winds down.
In Mount Olive, prior-cycle county reporting also described redevelopment of the former BASF site into a roughly 585,000-square-foot warehouse, illustrating continued conversion of legacy industrial sites along western highway corridors.
Public-sector construction is part of the same development picture. In Morristown, the Morris County Courthouse project is reshaping Schuyler Place, with county road-closure notices in March 2026 citing excavation, sanitary connections, and a water-service connection for the new courthouse facility.
The Morris School District is moving toward a bond referendum covering facility needs across its 10 schools, including HVAC and communications-system upgrades. The district frames the work around long-standing building needs, though the timing overlaps with area housing growth and questions about school capacity.
The Board of County Commissioners presented a 2026 Capital Spending Plan in December 2025 covering infrastructure, public safety, and education across all 39 municipalities. Separately, the county opened its 11th annual Trail Construction Grant cycle, making more than $1 million available to municipalities, with updated rules approved January 7, 2026.
Across the individual projects, county and municipal records point to a consistent secondary story. The conversation has shifted from whether more housing is coming to whether the surrounding systems, including roads, sewer and water connections, parking, stormwater infrastructure, and school capacity, can keep pace once approvals turn into occupancy.
Several of the largest applications, including Dover's 71 Bassett Highway and the Morris Township redevelopment plans, explicitly bundle utility, drainage, and stormwater work with housing. That pairing is itself a signal of where the pressure points are and where the next round of public hearings is likely to focus.
Projects described as underway, proposed, adopted, or pending reflect the most recent records reviewed in the source article and should be re-verified against current municipal agendas before republication, since planning matters move quickly. Keep Up Local reports development from public records and official statements, and does not assert outcomes that the record has not yet established.